For, not long ago, when I was walking for my amusement, in a private avenue at home, I was agreeably interrupted by my friend Brutus, and T. Pomponius, who came, as indeed they frequently did, to visit me;--two worthy citizens who were united to each other in the closest friendship, and were so dear and so agreeable to me, that, on the first sight of them, all my anxiety for the Commonwealth subsided. After the usual salutations,--"Well, gentlemen," said I, "how go the times? What news have you brought?" "None," replied Brutus, "that you would wish to hear, or that I can venture to tell you for truth."--"No," said Atticus; "we are come with an intention that all matters of state should be dropped; and rather to hear something from you, than to say any thing which might serve to distress you." "Indeed," said I, "your company is a present remedy for my sorrow; and your letters, when absent, were so encouraging, that they first revived my attention to my studies."--"I remember," replied Atticus, "that Brutus sent you a letter from Asia, which I read with infinite pleasure: for he advised you in it like a man of sense, and gave you every consolation which the warmest friendship could suggest."-- "True," said I, "for it was the receipt of that letter which recovered me from a growing indisposition, to behold once more the cheerful face of day; and as the Roman State, after the dreadful defeat near Cannae, first raised its drooping head by the victory of Marcellus at Nola, which was succeeded by many other victories; so, after the dismal wreck of our affairs, both public and private, nothing occurred to me before the letter of my friend Brutus, which I thought to be worth my attention, or which contributed, in any degree, to the anxiety of my heart."--"That was certainly my intention," answered Brutus; "and if I had the happiness to succeed, I was sufficiently rewarded for my trouble. But I could wish to be informed, what you received from Atticus which gave you such uncommon pleasure."--"That," said I, "which not only entertained me; but, I hope, has restored me entirely to myself."--"Indeed!" replied he; "and what miraculous composition could that be?"--"Nothing," answered I; "could have been a more acceptable, or a more seasonable present, than that excellent Treatise of his which roused me from a state of languor and despondency." --"You mean," said he, "his short, and, I think, very accurate abridgment of Universal History."--"The very same," said I; "for that little Treatise has absolutely saved me."--"I am heartily glad of it," said Atticus; "but what could you discover in it which was either new to you, or so wonderfully beneficial as you pretend?"--"It certainly furnished many hints," said I, "which were entirely new to me: and the exact order of time which you observed through the whole, gave me the opportunity I had long wished for, of beholding the history of all nations in one regular and comprehensive view.